How are you doing? Struggling already? Eyes in the back of your head and circles like a panda? Me too. Here's a tip, though: set your watch and all your clocks to Sydney time, blacken your windows during Irish day time and sleep. Loads. After a day or two you'll be as a fit as your average triathlete and fully acclimatized to the 2000 Olympics. But if the IOC ever, ever, ever give the Games to another time zone they'll have me to answer to.
Two deepish thoughts struck me in the early hours of the other morning (what day was it? I have noooo idea) while watching Naim Suleymanoglu weightlifting on Eurosport, as you do. (1) A job would be a desperate nuisance at this time and (2) weightlifters should be exempt from the "no drugs, if you wouldn't mind" rule that is rarely enforced in sport. On the whole, the lads bear a striking resemblance to the hunchback of Notre Dame and the women look like trolls. So, join my campaign now - what do we want? Human growth hormone for weightlifters! When do we want it? Now! (Mind you, judging by the number of failed drug tests by our friends so far it looks like the campaign won't be all that necessary).
Anyway Houston, we have a problem - we're watching live weightlifting on Eurosport at four in the morning and whichever way you look at it, it's as sad as it gets. Worse, we even got a bit emotional about it, nay, frenzied. When auld "Pocket Hercules" himself (Suleymanoglu, for the uninitiated) gambled by setting his entry weight at 145 kg in the 62 kg class - a weight that was higher than the Olympic record - I bawled "don't do it Suley, DON'T DO IT!" at my telly. I did.
But he ignored my heartfelt advice and failed at all three snatch attempts and, before you could say "how can weightlifting possibly be categorised as a sport", Suley was out. Gutted. Back to the pool. Now, to be honest, if you'd told me I'd ever be excited again by anything achieved by a swimmer I'd have shown you my scars from Atlanta and
vowed, "I won't be burned again." But then Ian Thorpe came in to my life and, well, I'm smitten. My sporting therapist has told me not to give too much of myself to this relationship just yet, because I might get hurt in the end, but I'm willing to trust the circumstantial evidence. They say, after all, that he's been blowing them out of the water since he first dipped his big toe in a pool and he's offered to have his blood frozen so it can be examined when/if the testing procedures ever catch up with the con-artists.
So, for now, Thorpe's swim in the final leg of the 4 x 100 metres freestyle relay is up there with the dizziest of goose bump-inducing sporting moments of my lifetime. Damn it, I was more out of breath than he was at the end. Glorious, marvellous, awe-inspiring stuff.
Nice observation by the BBC's Adrian Moorehead, a more than half decent swimmer in his time. "They keep comparing him to Tiger Woods and sure enough, look at his face - it has the same serenity as Tiger. Pressure? He doesn't understand the meaning of the word."
Over on RTE, Bill O'Herlihy was asking Gary O'Toole if we could believe what we had seen. "He's open about his training techniques, there's nothing secretive about it. There was none of this `I'll show you my magic potion once the Olympic Games are over'," said Gary.
"They won't be saying the same about Inge de Bruijn, will they," asked Bill. "A different kettle of fish," said Gary. "Do you believe somebody who breaks eight world records in two months is clean?" asked Bill. Gary laughed. "She argues she's changed her technique, she's changed this, she's changed that," he said. "We've heard it all before, haven't we," sighed Bill. "We have, echoes of the past," said Gary.
Mmm. Dutch observers are entitled to ask: "How come the same questions weren't asked of a certain someone in Atlanta?" Answer: innocent until proven guilty, and all that. Fine, but then apply the same standards to Inge de Bruijn. The same de Bruijn who achieved nothing of note in her sport until she was 25 years of age. Then? Wham, bam, gold medals galore. Sound familiar? Here we go again? Maybe. But we're hardly in a position to tut-tut at the Dutch, eh?
